Guide dogs will be giving the side-eye to self-driving car tech coming for their jobs

The visually impaired are getting a helping hand (or a helping belt, as it were) from Korean startup AI Guided. At CES in Las Vegas, the company was showing off some pretty neat tech that incorporates optical and Lidar technology along with AI-powered on-device computing to identify obstacles and help with navigation.

The company claims to be able to do advanced object identification to help keep walkers safe, in addition to using gentle haptic feedback to help with wayfinding. The whole system is carried on a belt, leaving the users hands-free.

AI-Guided’s upcoming product Guidi, shown off at CES 2023. Image Credit: Haje Kamps / TechCrunch

The company is pretty early in its journey, starting the initial work on the product in January 2020, with the first prototypes being built mid-2021, and a planned ship date of October 2023. No word yet on pricing, but the company tells us it is hoping to be able to incorporate an 8-hour battery life, and full autonomy even in situations where Wi-Fi or cellular data isn’t available.

There’s not a huge amount of information or details available to date, but as soon as we saw the promo image the company has – with the guide dog giving its replacement the side-eye, we knew we had to share it as one of the weird and wonderful things we find as we traverse the show floors at the world’s largest consumer electronics show.

The company told TechCrunch it is planning to launch an Indiegogo campaign to bring Guidi to market later this month.